"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain menfrom injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." (Thomas Jefferson)

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Why let the facts get in the way when you are lying at the debates? Does Romney have selective memory loss about his time as Governor since he had all the hard drives destroyed from his Administration? Doesn't that sound like Nixon? Kind of scary if you think about it as the last thing we need in the White House is another Nixon type. The Romney lie I have put in bold in this article from the Weekly Standard, but here are the key words:

“Nope, absolutely not. Of course not. "

Did Romney think The Boston Globe no longer had an archives of their articles when this happened? Not only did they have the article in the archive but the headline immediately points out Romney is lying:

“Romney says no hospitals are exempt from pill law.”

Between Romney not answering a simple question at the debate and the lies picked up by Fact Check, how can anyone say he had a good debate unless telling the truth is not part of a good debate performance? Why couldn't he answer the question of the biggest misconception about him or is it because what some of us are writing is actually true?

Looks like Romney was caught in a whopper of a lie on forcing Catholic Hospitals to provide the Morning-After Pills:

During Wednesday night’s Republican debate, moderator John King said, “Governor Romney, both Senator Santorum and Speaker Gingrich have said during your tenure as governor, you required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. And Mr. Speaker, you compared the governor to President Obama, saying he infringed on Catholics’ rights. Governor, did you do that?”

Romney replied, “Nope, absolutely not. Of course not. There was no requirement in Massachusetts for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims. That was entirely voluntary on their part. There was no such requirement.”

Yet a headline in the Boston Globe on December 9, 2005 read, “Romney says no hospitals are exempt from pill law.” The first sentence of the corresponding article read, “Governor Mitt Romney reversed course on the state’s new emergency contraception law yesterday, saying that all hospitals in the state will be obligated to provide the morning-after pill to rape victims.”

Newt Gingrich, who looked puzzled and incredulous as Romney was speaking, replied,
“Well, the reports we got were quite clear that the public health department [of Massachusetts] was prepared to give a waiver to Catholic hospitals about a morning-after abortion pill, and that the governor’s office issued explicit instructions saying that they believed it wasn’t possible under Massachusetts law to give them that waiver. Now, that was [in] the newspaper reports that came out. That’s something that both Senator Santorum and I have raised before.”

“On December 7, 2005, Romney’s Department of Public Health said that Catholic and other privately-run hospitals could opt out of giving the morning-after pill to rape victims because of religious or moral objections….

“On December 8, 2005 Romney reversed the legal opinion of his own State Department of Public Health, instructing all Catholic hospitals and others to provide the chemical Plan B ‘morning after pill’ to rape victims.”

On December 9, the Boston Globe headline appeared.

The Globe reported:

“[Governor Romney’s] decision overturns a ruling made public this week by the state Department of Public Health that privately run hospitals could opt out of the requirement if they objected on moral or religious grounds.

“Romney had initially supported that interpretation, but he said yesterday [Thursday] that he had changed direction after his legal counsel, Mark D. Nielsen, concluded Wednesday that the new law supersedes a preexisting statute that says private hospitals cannot be forced to provide abortions or contraception.

“‘And on that basis, I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view,’ Romney said at the State House after signing a bill on capital gains taxes.”

(snip)

“Asked yesterday to elaborate on that position, Romney said simply that the law was the law and that the state had to follow it. The governor characterized his own beliefs about emergency contraception this way: ‘My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information.’”

After responding to Romney in the debate, Gingrich made the broader point about the inevitable tension between liberty and centralized government power, saying:

“I want to go a step further, because this makes a point that Ron Paul has been making for a generation and that people need to take very seriously. When you have government as the central provider of services, you inevitably move towards tyranny, because the government has the power of force. You inevitably — and I think this is true whether it’s Romneycare or Obamacare or any other government centralized system — you inevitably move towards the coercion of the state and the state saying, ‘If you don’t do what we, the politicians, have defined, you will be punished either financially or you will be punished in some other way like going to jail.’ And that’s why we are, I think, at an enormous crossroads in this country.”

No wonder Romney doesn't want to run on his real record of Governor preferring to rewrite history about his record. Once again he has been caught by Fact Check from Wednesday night's debate. The first paragraph from the Boston Globe about Fact Checking had the best description of the debates I have seen:

Twenty Republican presidential debates later, the head-scratching claims kept coming.
Did Mitt Romney really cut taxes as Massachusetts governor, as he asserted yet again? Or did he raise them by hundreds of millions of dollars, as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum alleged? And how could Newt Gingrich have given the nation four balanced budgets when he was only in Congress for two of them?
There was something old, something new in the misstatements of the candidates Wednesday in what was possibly the last GOP debate.

Now for some of the real facts from the debate Wednesday nigh:

ROMNEY to Santorum: “You voted to raise the debt ceiling five times without compensating cuts in spending.’’

THE FACTS: Maybe so, but increases in the debt ceiling were not politically charged in the past as they are now. They just allow the government to pay bills run up by previous Congresses. To not pay them would be like deciding to stop paying a car loan or mortgage. In fact, President Ronald Reagan, an icon to most conservatives, supported increases in the debt limit 12 times over his two terms. The idea of insisting on offsetting spending cuts when raising the debt ceiling is relatively new.

******

ROMNEY: “They finally realized I was right.’’ — On the government ushering the auto industry into and out of bankruptcy.

THE FACTS: Romney did propose a bankruptcy process for the automakers before the government opted for that course. But there was a tremendous difference between the course he advocated and the one that was taken. GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy on the strength of a massive bailout that Romney opposed. Neither Republican President George W. Bush nor Democratic President Barack Obama believed the automakers would have survived without that backup from taxpayers. Romney held out the possibility at the time of the government giving certain loan and warranty guarantees that would not have approached the nearly $85 billion bailout.

******

SANTORUM: “Gov. Romney even today suggested raising taxes on the top 1 percent.’’

THE FACTS: Romney’s new proposal actually would lower tax rates across the board. The rate for the wealthiest Americans would drop to 28 percent from 35 percent. However, Romney’s call for unspecified new limits on tax deductions for higher-income taxpayers makes it impossible, absent more details, to assess the impact on any individual.

******

NEWT GINGRICH: “When I was speaker … we balanced the budget for four consecutive years.’’

THE FACTS: Gingrich has made this misstatement many times before. He was speaker from January 1995 to January 1999. During budget years 1996 and 1997, when Gingrich was House speaker, the government ran deficits totaling nearly $130 billion. In budget year 1998, which ended Sept. 30, 1998, there was a surplus of $69 billion. And in budget year 1999, during which Gingrich was speaker part of the time, there was a surplus of $126 billion. Thus, Gingrich can only claim credit for contributing to two years of a balanced budget, at most.

******

ROMNEY: “I’m going to link the pay of government workers with the pay in the private sector. Government servants shouldn’t get more than the people who are paying taxes.’’

THE FACTS: It’s something of a myth that federal workers make out like gangbusters next to their private sector counterparts.

The latest Congressional Budget Office study found federal pay is, on average, only 2 percent higher than for comparable private sector workers. The discrepancy is larger among the least educated. Federal employees with just a high school diploma make 21 percent more than similar private workers. But federal workers tend to be more educated, older and concentrated in professional occupations — and they make 23 percent less, on average, than private sector counterparts.

That advantage holds true when benefits are added to the mix: The federal professionals still lag, while federal employees with less education have a greater advantage over private sector workers.

These are excerpts from the Fact Check of the debate on Wednesday. You can read more at The Boston Globe. Bottom line is not to believe everything you hear at a debate. Checking Fact Check during and following the debate gives you the facts instead of spin from candidates. Democrat Fact Check in 2008 for their debates was off the chart with lies and misstatements. Not sure which was worse 2004 or 2008 from the Democrats when it came to lying and spinning at debates.

How about getting some honest candidates to run for President who tell the truth when asked a question instead of trying to score political points with lies and misstatements? Wouldn't it be nice to turn into a debate and know you are going to find how how a candidate feels about an issue without spin or pandering? Is it possible that in 2016 we could have debates with unbiased moderators and no spin?

Having liberal moderators for most of the Republican debates has not helped the process of electing our nominee to go against Obama in the fall. Some moderators are more concerned about starting a cat fight among candidates then getting at the truth of what they believe. The Republican Primary has been a disaster so far in the eyes of a lot of conservatives and now the establishment types are starting to say the same thing. Time to change the way we elect our nominee starting with cleaning out the RNC which should have happened back in 2000 when the RNC Chair favored McCain over Bush in the primary. A good friend and I sent an email to all members of the RNC asking them to remove the Chair -- didn't happen but we tried.

Bottom line is if Romney cannot tell the truth on an issue like the MA Morning-After Pill Mandate, how can we expect him to tell the truth as President? Instead of a President with the nickname of "Tricky Dick," would we have one called "Tricky Mitt!" No thanks, I will pass on Romney and hope that fellow conservatives have finally woken up to the fact that Romney and Paul are tag teaming and either vote for Santorum or Gingrich -- not my first choice or second choice but much better than Romney/Paul and 100 times better than Obama.

1 comment:

Brzezinski set up Arab Spring and Zia, so why surprised bin Laden was in Sineurabia code? Pakistanis descend from weasels who sold their Hindu brothers into hundreds of years of islamic slavery. That is why FIAT supplied Iran and every Catholic is like a Manchurian Candidate programmed to kill their best friend of they felt the "Holy Father" required it. Vatican Osservatore Romano editor Vian said on May 18th that Obama "is not a pro-abortion president" - proves stand to encourage Catholics to breed and to encourage non-Catholics to abort out of spite. The Vatican likes the abortion status quo in the USA for this reason. Their purpose is only conquest, not faith. Carolignian Brzezinski spawned Zia al Haq, Khomeini, and bin Laden - breaks up superpowers via Aztlan and Kosovo as per Joel Garreau's Nine Nations. Brzezinski, Buckley and Buchanan winked anti-Semitic votes for Obama, delivered USA to Pope's feudal basket of Bamana Republics. Michael Pfleger and Joe Biden prove Obama is the Pope's boy. Obama is half a Kearney from County Offaly in Ireland. Talal got Pontifical medal as Fatima mandates Catholic-Muslim union against Jews (Francis Johnson, Great Sign, 1979, p. 126), Catholic Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott decision. John Wilkes Booth, Tammany Hall and Joe McCarthy were Catholics. Now Catholic majority Supreme Court. Catholics Palmisano, Grasso, Damato, Langone, Mozilo, Ranieri, Dioguardi, Palmieri destroyed American industry with their casuistrous ethics. Subprime construction mobsters had hookers deliver mortgages to banks. McCain's Keeting started it all. They find American cars too advanced to use or their mechanics to fix. Ellis Island Popecrawlers brought in FDR. Since Pio Nino banned voting they consider our Constitution and laws immoral and illegitimate and think nothing of violating them or passing legislation that undermine them. They believe that they can not be fully loyal to their superiors if they do not go the extra stretch and break the law intentionally. Their slovenly, anti-intellectual work ethic produces vacuous, casuistrous blather and a tangle of hypocritical, contradictory regulations. Their clubhouse purges provided praetorian training for corporate misgovernance. They sided with the enemy in both World Wars and now, too. Every American boom has been caused by an Evangelical Revival and every major Depression by the domination of new Catholic immigrants. NYC top drop outs: Hispanic 32%, Black 25%, Italian 20%. NYC top illegals: Ecuadorean, Italian, Polish. Ate glis-glis but blamed plague on others, now lettuce coli. Their bigotry most encouraged terror yet they reap most security funds. View this life as casuistry training to survive purgatory. Rabbi circumcises lower, Pope upper brain. Tort explosion by glib casuistry. Hollywood Joe Kennedy had Bing Crosby proselytize. Bazelya 1992 case proves PLO-IRA-KLA links. Our enemy is the Bru666elles Sineurabia feudal Axis and the only answer is alliance with Israel and India. They killed six million Jews, a million Serbs, half a million freemasons, a quarter million Gypsies, they guided the slaughter of Assyrians and Armenians, and promoted the art of genocide throughout the world now they are relentless in their year to canonize nazi pope. 9/11 was Yugo Crimean blowback: Napoleon started the crudade against the Photius Heresy to avenge his uncle, Clinton wanted to cover Pacelli's war crimes. They had no qualms hijacking American policy in Vietnam or Balkans to papal ends, but when American interests opposed those of the papacy in Iraq and Iran, they showed their true fangs (Frum, Unpatriotic Conservatives).

According to Think Progress, “NRA: Practice Range” is billed as a “network of news, laws, facts, knowledge, safety tips, educational materials and online resource” for the organization.The National Rifle Association released a new app on Sunday that includes a gun range equipped with coffin-shaped targets, and the option for players to simulate using a military-grade sniper rifle.

The app includes what it calls “9 true to life firearms,” and allows players to download an MK-11 sniper rifle setting for 99 cents. The rifle can shoot 750 rounds per minute.

Follow by Email

Subscribe To Democrats for Sale

Political Image

Dems/GOP Fighting -- Will they Finally Work Together for the Country? Will replace this image when they do. (11/07/2012)

Quotes

"We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this." President Barack Obama, Newtown, CT, 12/16/2012

******

"I don't think that the way to correct a spin from the left is to try to impart a spin from the right.... [A]n information flow distorted from the right would be just as much a disservice as distortion from the left. What we really should be after... is accurate information. And I don't see what any conservative or anybody else for that matter has to fear from accurate information." M. Stanton Evans

******

Former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY)

“For heaven’s sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he’ll defeat you,” he told CNN back in May. “He can’t murder you. He can’t burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection. And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we’re in extremity, you shouldn’t even be in Congress.”

******

"We are are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation.

******

John Stuart Mill was a 19th century political philosopher:

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." John Stuart Mill.